We will take for our book of reference no certain Sicilian customs,[41] one of Dr. Pitrè’s exhaustive cycle. We could not have a better guide. Dr. Pitrè has devoted twenty good years of his life, health, and fortune to collecting and preserving the records of all the popular superstitions, habits, legends and customs of Sicily. Some of these are already things of the past; others are swiftly vanishing; others again are in full vigor. Dr. Pitrè’s work is valuable enough now; in a short time it will be priceless to students and ethnologists who care to trace likenesses and track to sources, and who are not content with the mere surface of things without delving down to causes and meanings.
All women, the world over, who expect to become mothers, are curious as to the sex of the unborn child; and every old wife has a bundle of unfailing signs and omens which determine the question out of hand without leaving room for doubt. In Sicily these signs are as follows—among others of dubious modesty, which it is as well to leave in obscurity. If you suddenly ask an expectant mother: “What is the matter with your hand?” and she holds up or turns out the palm of her right hand, her child will be a boy. If she holds up her left hand or turns out the back of her right, it will be a girl. If she strews salt before the threshold, the sex of the first person who enters in at the door determines that of the unborn—a man for a boy, a woman for a girl. If she goes to draw water from the well, and throws a few drops over her shoulder without looking back, the sex of the first person who passes, after the performance of this “sortilegio,” in like manner determines the sex of the child. After the first child, the line in which the hair grows at the nape of the neck of the preceding is an unfailing sign of that which is coming after. If it grows in a peak it presages a boy, if straight a girl. This is also one of the infallible signs in India. If the woman sees an ugly or a deformed creature, and does not say in an audible voice: “Diu ca lu fici”—God has made it—she will produce a monster. If she repeats the charm, devoutly as she ought, she has saved her child from deformity.
The patron saint of expectant mothers in Sicily is S. Francisco di Paola. To secure his intervention in their behalf they go to church every Friday to pray specially to him. The first time they go they are blessed by putting on the cord or girdle proper to this saint; by receiving, before their own offering, two blessed beans, a few blessed wafers, and a small wax taper, also blessed, round which is twisted a slip of paper whereon is printed—“Ora pro nobis Sancte Pater Francisce di Paola.” The cord is worn during the time of pregnancy; the candle is lighted during the pains of childbirth, when heavenly interposition is necessary; and the beans and wafers are eaten as an act of devotion which results in all manner of good to both mother and child.
In country places pregnant women who believe in the knowledge of the midwife rather than in the science of the doctor, are still bled at stated times, generally on the “even” months. Dr. Pitrè knew personally one woman who had been bled the incredible number of two hundred and thirteen times during her pregnancy. She had moreover heart disease; and she offered herself as a wet-nurse.
The quarter in which the moon chances to be at the time of birth has great influence on the future character and career of the new-born. So have special days and months. All children born in March, which is the “mad” month of Italy (“Marzo è pazzo”), are predisposed to insanity. Woe to the female child who has the ill-luck to be born on a cloudy, stormy, rainy day! She must infallibly become an ugly woman. Woe to the boy who is born with the new moon! He will become a “loup garou,” and he will be recognized by his inordinately long nails. But well is it for the child who first sees the light of day on a Friday—unlike ourselves, with whom “Friday’s child is sour and sad”—or who is born on St. Paul’s night. He will be bright, strong, bold and cheerful. He will be able to handle venomous snakes with impunity for his own part, and to cure by licking those who have been bitten. He will be able to control lunatics and to discover things secret and hidden; and he will be a chatterbox.
More things go to make a successful or unsuccessful “time” in Sicily than we recognize in England. A woman in her hour of trial is held and hindered as much as was ever poor Alcmena, when Lucina sat crosslegged before her gate, if a woman “in disgrazia di Dio”—that is, leading an immoral life—either in secret or openly, enters the room. The best counter-agent then is to invoke very loudly Santa Leocarda, the Dea Partula of Catholicism. If she be not sufficiently powerful, and things are still delayed, then all the other saints, the Madonna, and finally God himself, are appealed to with profound faith in a speedy release. In one place the church bells are rung; on which all the women within earshot repeat an Ave. In another, the silver chain of La Madonna della Catena is the surest obstetrician; and science and the doctor have no power over the mind of the suffering woman where this has all. To this day is believed the story of a poor mother who, when her pain had begun, hurried off to the church to pray to the Madonna della Catena for aid. When she returned home, the Holy Virgin herself assisted her, and not only brought her child into the world, but also gave her bread, clothes and jewels.
If the child be born weak or dying, and the need is therefore imminent, the midwife baptizes it. For which reason she must never be one who is deaf and dumb—nor one who stutters or stammers. Before baptism no one must kiss a new-born infant, seeing that it is still a pagan; which thing would therefore be a sin. In Modica the new-born child is no longer under the protection of the Madonna, but under that of certain mysterious beings called “Le Padrone della Casa.” To ensure this protection the oldest of the women present lays on the table, or the clothes chest, nine black beans in the form of a wedge—repeating between her teeth a doggerel charm, which will prevent “Le Padrone della Casa” from harming the babe or its mother. Others, instead of black beans, put their trust in a reel or winder with two little bits of cane fastened to it crosswise, which they lay on the bed, and which also is certain to prevent all evil handling by these viewless forms. At Marsala, the night after that following the birth, the windows of the room where the infant lies are shut close, a pinch of salt is strewn behind the door, and the light is left burning, so that a certain malignant spirit called ’Nserra may not enter to hurt the new-born. In other places they hide in the woman’s bed—generally under the pillow—a key, or a small ball, or a clove of garlic, or the mother’s thimble, or scissors, all or any of which does the same good office of exorcism as the pinch of salt, and the light left burning. For the first drink, a whole partridge, beak and feet, is put into a pint of water, which is then boiled down to a cupful, and given to the woman as the best restorative art and science can devise. When she is allowed to eat solids she has a chicken, of which she is careful to give the neck to her husband. Were she herself to eat it, her child’s neck would be undeniably weak.
When taken to the church to be baptized, the infant, if a boy, is carried on the right arm—if a girl, on the left. In the church the father proper effaces himself as of no account in the proceedings; and the godfather carries off all the honors. The more pompous ceremonial at baptism occurs only at the birth of the first son. The Sicilian proverb has it: “The first son is born a baron.”
Immediately after the baptism Sicilian Albanians dance a special dance; and when they go home they throw out roasted peas to the people. Hence: “When shall we have the peas?” is used as a periphrasis for: “When does she expect her confinement?” The water in which the “chrism,” or christening cup is washed, is accounted holy, because of the sacred oil which it has touched. It is flung out on to a hedge, so that no foot of man may tread the soil which has received it. Also the water in which the child is first washed is treated as a thing apart. It is thrown on to the highway, if the babe be a boy; under the bed, or the oven, or in some other part of the house, if it be a girl;—the one signifying that a man must fare forth, the other that a woman must bide within.